Is there anyway to explain mental health to someone?

This is more of a rant/brain moment, so sorry if this goes off point sometimes but I just want to get this out there (SPAG will be awful probably).

It's clear not enough people know about mental health, in life generally but how do you tell a person who hasn't experienced it, what its like?

Backstory:

I come from a family of people with mental illness, and I knew from a young age that I would develop it at some point myself. My mum has Bipolar and Anxiety Disorder and the majority of that side of the family have similar conditions which they have had for their whole adult lives. I'm the only one in my family who developed mental illness as a child, I was 12.

I've been in the mental health services for all of my teenage years, and they never formally diagnosed me with anything until about a year and a half ago. I suffer with (Social) Anxiety Disorder, Binge Eating Disorder & OCD, which also lead to horrible nervous tics and depression. I was also treated for psychosis until my 18th birthday, so all fun and games. *

Back to what I'm talking about, I find it so hard to explain to people what's going on up in my head because everything I seem to say sounds so unrealistic and well, mad. I have told a couple of people in the past and they automatically labelled me as a nutcase and made sure everyone knew that.

I shall give an example: I see people on for example Facebook who will put a status like "I'm so upset" and theres usually 2 types of comment: Inbox me or U THIRSTY ASS GROW UP. Regardless on what you think on sharing sad things on social media, and attention seeking/mental health or not.. that person might be so upset he/she needs someone to talk to.

Mental health is such a broad area, and 1 in 5 people suffer with it. I sometimes wonder why people are so idiotic when it comes to mental illness. I know that mental illness in history speak has been a sign of flaws or "evil" "madness" "insanity" but its the 21st century, have people really not learnt anything in that time?

This brings me to the question on the thread title: Is there a way to explain mental health/illness to someone?
Mental illness is a pain in the arse as its different in everyone, and because of how broad it is no-one fully understands every aspect. Do you think there will be a time where people will fully understand the feelings mental health can bring, without having those feelings themselves?

I'm not sure how much sense this made, sorry.
There is a message behind this: Regardless of what people say about you, there is always someone out there who understands to some extent. We're lucky in some ways because there are some amazing people on this forum who have really helped me and others feel less alone in it all. You just have to talk to them!

Anyway /rantover. If anyone wants a chat, message me I'm usually around.


http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

*found that surprisingly hard to write, wow

I think you can explain mental health to someone, sure. But I don't think they can truly understand it until they've been in a similar situation. And I don't blame them to be honest. I don't see how most people could begin to accept something they can't even understand.

But there's also a difference between not understanding and being a total **** about it. And most people don't seem to notice that difference when they should.

*+*+ edits: Actually I might PM you in a sec Jazz IF THAT'S OK

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Originally Posted by Empired

I think you can explain mental health to someone, sure. But I don't think they can truly understand it until they've been in a similar situation. And I don't blame them to be honest. I don't see how most people could begin to accept something they can't even understand.

But there's also a difference between not understanding and being a total **** about it. And most people don't seem to notice that difference when they should.

*+*+ edits: Actually I might PM you in a sec Jazz IF THAT'S OK

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I wouldn't ever understand other mental health problems unless I suffered with them myself, but yeah totally agree. Someone can explain something to me 100 times and I wouldn't understand it properly, I think its just the lengths people go to, to show their ignorance. e.g saying its a phase etc

THATS OK X

my uni had a campaign to try and overcome the stigma of mental health but idk its tricky
ppl at uni are generally more open minded and thoughtful in the first place anyway though (well in my experience anyway)

mental illness is as much of an illness as any other out there, none are superior or inferior. it affects an organ in your body (the brain) and should be given the same respect as others

HOWEVER

i feel the stigma comes from the fact that there is no way to 100% diagnose a mental illness and the fact people can 'fake' these symptoms to get a diagnosis is what makes people turn their nose up at it actually being a real illness. with the likes of cancer, or an illness with physical symptoms people can see this and have sympathy for the person,whereas there are no physical symptoms with mental health. there's nothing you can do besides explain how you feel, how the illness makes you feel, and hope that they can empathise. and yeah, i definitely feel like it's getting taken more seriously these days, hopefully in the future there will be less of a stigma.

edit: using cancer as an illness with physical symptoms is not the greatest example sorry, but you get me

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Originally Posted by wixard

mental illness is as much of an illness as any other out there, none are superior or inferior. it affects an organ in your body (the brain) and should be given the same respect as others

HOWEVER

i feel the stigma comes from the fact that there is no way to 100% diagnose a mental illness and the fact people can 'fake' these symptoms to get a diagnosis is what makes people turn their nose up at it actually being a real illness. with the likes of cancer, or an illness with physical symptoms people can see this and have sympathy for the person,whereas there are no physical symptoms with mental health. there's nothing you can do besides explain how you feel, how the illness makes you feel, and hope that they can empathise. and yeah, i definitely feel like it's getting taken more seriously these days, hopefully in the future there will be less of a stigma.

edit: using cancer as an illness with physical symptoms is not the greatest example sorry, but you get me

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yeah, like there isn't a scan, xray or blood test you can do that will diagnose mental illness.

totally agree with you and @subo; +rep

it's difficult. people are not quite ready to accept that others don't actually think like them and so view mh problems as "attention seeking behaviour" and the like without asking why the person is actually exhibiting these behaviours or attributing their own diagnoses onto the situation by saying that it's down to parents or w.e. living with and around people with mental health issues is so tough and I would not wish it on anybody, just wish some people were more willing to educate themselves on things rather than remaining ignorant and often disrespectful just because they don't actually know what's going on under the surface.

atm explaining any select illness that can't be universally measured is futile, but i would hope that if an individual suffering from it took their time to say how it affects their life then others would be accepting. just cos yall cant see it, doesnt mean it isn't happening. the mind is too complex man.

I would like to just comment on that I wish we all understood mental disabilities, and yes I can admit to myself that I will probably never understand disabilities all too well, which yes that's makes me have ignorance to what I could know. I have to agree with the experience part. There are many people in my family who have faked illnesses to get attention, which could be a leading reason to my view on disabilities.
Unfortunately, I wish these disabilities weren't as common as they are right now. Because let's be honest, 10 years from now there will be more and more mental disabilities than we know now.

It is something that we'll all be learning.

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Originally Posted by Bikini

I would like to just comment on that I wish we all understood mental disabilities, and yes I can admit to myself that I will probably never understand disabilities all too well, which yes that's makes me have ignorance to what I could know. I have to agree with the experience part. There are many people in my family who have faked illnesses to get attention, which could be a leading reason to my view on disabilities.
Unfortunately, I wish these disabilities weren't as common as they are right now. Because let's be honest, 10 years from now there will be more and more mental disabilities than we know now.

It is something that we'll all be learning.

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your constant use of the word 'disability' is interesting. if somebody 'fakes' a mental illness but they still get caught up in it and it manages to have profound effects on their life, do you not think that then it could in fact morph into a disability in its own right?

I think the biggest difficulty is people don't understand HOW it develops in the first place. I think it's hard for someone to understand how a person can be totally fine one day and then go into a spiral path downwards.

I think another thing is that people who have mental illnesses don't always know that they do. So an outsider could say 'if you thought things were getting worse, then why didn't you do something about it early on?' If a person doesn't know it's happening to them until it's taken control then it's not exactly a case of just going to get help, because a lot of people struggle to ask for help.

But going back to HOW it comes about. I think people think that it just happens one day and you've got a mental illness and don't realise that it's a journey and it doesn't just happen overnight. So it can seem like something really pathetic and meaningless to an outsider because they don't understand the path a person has taken to get to the state they're in.

I don't know if this thread stemmed off the 200 selfies one, but I myself only gave the first post in that a quick read, and my first thought was, why does he care so much, and if he hated his appearance why does he post so many selfies? It seemed at first like an attention thing. Then someone posted the full article and I read it all and I felt really guilty, because it wasn't just a guy who only cared about appearance, when you read it there's a load of backstory.

I myself had a few problems in my teens with feeling surrounded by my demons and they were probably petty to anyone else, but to me they were the world and they take control of your life and it's very stressful. But I'll admit, when I first saw the 200 selfies thread I thought 'there I was suffering REAL problems, and all this guy has to worry about is image!' But I regret thinking that now, and I take it all back because it seems like his problems stemmed from something that became an obsession which just grew and grew, which is exactly what I felt- obsession. Now I didn't get diagnosed with have a mental illness, and I don't think I was that bad, but I sort of understand where it's all coming from now.

But no, if you ever try to explain it to someone, they don't understand it to the full extent. The obsession and control thing is hard to explain.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

your constant use of the word 'disability' is interesting. if somebody 'fakes' a mental illness but they still get caught up in it and it manages to have profound effects on their life, do you not think that then it could in fact morph into a disability in its own right?

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I would agree. But I also think we tag the word "disability" on things that are not really disabilities. If that makes sense.

But other than that. I would agree with you

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Originally Posted by Bikini

I would agree. But I also think we tag the word "disability" on things that are not really disabilities. If that makes sense.

But other than that. I would agree with you

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what kind of thing are you talking about when you say people faking

and what do you think is unnecessarily labelled 'disability' ?

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Originally Posted by Charz777

I think the biggest difficulty is people don't understand HOW it develops in the first place. I think it's hard for someone to understand how a person can be totally fine one day and then go into a spiral path downwards.

I think another thing is that people who have mental illnesses don't always know that they do. So an outsider could say 'if you thought things were getting worse, then why didn't you do something about it early on?' If a person doesn't know it's happening to them until it's taken control then it's not exactly a case of just going to get help, because a lot of people struggle to ask for help.

But going back to HOW it comes about. I think people think that it just happens one day and you've got a mental illness and don't realise that it's a journey and it doesn't just happen overnight. So it can seem like something really pathetic and meaningless to an outsider because they don't understand the path a person has taken to get to the state they're in.

I don't know if this thread stemmed off the 200 selfies one, but I myself only gave the first post in that a quick read, and my first thought was, why does he care so much, and if he hated his appearance why does he post so many selfies? It seemed at first like an attention thing. Then someone posted the full article and I read it all and I felt really guilty, because it wasn't just a guy who only cared about appearance, when you read it there's a load of backstory.

I myself had a few problems in my teens with feeling surrounded by my demons and they were probably petty to anyone else, but to me they were the world and they take control of your life and it's very stressful. But I'll admit, when I first saw the 200 selfies thread I thought 'there I was suffering REAL problems, and all this guy has to worry about is image!' But I regret thinking that now, and I take it all back because it seems like his problems stemmed from something that became an obsession which just grew and grew, which is exactly what I felt- obsession. Now I didn't get diagnosed with have a mental illness, and I don't think I was that bad, but I sort of understand where it's all coming from now.

But no, if you ever try to explain it to someone, they don't understand it to the full extent. The obsession and control thing is hard to explain.

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You and I the same. I honestly didn't read the full story until getting hate replies, and negative reputations.

So to those I have offended, I am sorry and I will admit that I should have read the whole thing. Guilty for not doing the right thing and reading the full story, and also guilty that I tried to defend my reasoning with once again not reading.

lmfao there was a girl i worked with and she faked having mental issues so she could leave the job b4 she was sacked

but thinking about it its the exact thing we are talking about now, like i said str8 away writing this that she faked it *shrugs* maybe she did have problems cos she was about to lose her job who knowsssss

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Originally Posted by Kyle

what kind of thing are you talking about when you say people faking

and what do you think is unnecessarily labelled 'disability' ?

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I am not out looking for a fight, I am admitting that my ignorance stems from my past experiences with people (family) faking that they have a learning disability (so they can get disability and not have to work and government pays for them to sit on their ass all day) but they clearly do not have a disability.

That's what I mean by that.

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Originally Posted by Bikini

I am not out looking for a fight, I am admitting that my ignorance stems from my past experiences with people (family) faking that they have a learning disability (so they can get disability and not have to work and government pays for them to sit on their ass all day) but they clearly do not have a disability.

That's what I mean by that.

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oh I hope you don't think I'm looking for a fight either, I'm just trying to delve deeper into why people are viewing things in certain lights. i.e. different uses and definitions for the word disability, denial of it to those that may otherwise be labelled so, etc. you aren't at all wrong for attributing past experience onto future ones, everybody does it. being a little more sensitive around issues of the mind and accepting that we aren't going to truly understand how others think is a good place to start changing attitudes.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

oh I hope you don't think I'm looking for a fight either, I'm just trying to delve deeper into why people are viewing things in certain lights. i.e. different uses and definitions for the word disability, denial of it to those that may otherwise be labelled so, etc. you aren't at all wrong for attributing past experience onto future ones, everybody does it. being a little more sensitive around issues of the mind and accepting that we aren't going to truly understand how others think is a good place to start changing attitudes.

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Agreed, and honestly I don't think a lot of people will admit to being insensitive. Because a lot of disabilities are still being defined and a lot are still unknown which makes people iffy and they become focused on the littler things that reflect the whole disability.
I wish everyone could read your comment because honestly, I find it true that the generation coming will become more and more oblivious to the world around them.

Thanks for this reply. +rep

People are just so different that there'll never come a time when something is universally accepted. Some people are too self-absorbed to look at anything beyond their own understanding and imagine how it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes so in that sense it doesn't really matter how you explain it, they'll never try to understand. Surely a better question is why do you have to explain mental health/illness to someone? Does it have to come up? For instance - and I know this situation isn't mental health so forgive me for that - I'm bi but unless someone asks then I'm not likely to bring it up in conversation, it's a part of me but it's not the whole part of me. It's not something that's on display in the same sense that a mental illness is often invisible (I know you mention nervous tics so if that's noticeable that could explain why it comes up in conversation). This isn't me saying hide who you are and if you're one of those people who'd rather talk about it upfront then that's fine too, what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't have to justify who you are.

Describing a thought process you have to someone radically different isn't ever easy if at all possible even; you can teach tolerance and understanding but you can't teach experience. In a more mundane form it's like someone trying to tell me how good nuts taste when I would literally rather eat cardboard, I get that other people like them and I can understand some of the reasons but it's not an experience I can have for whatever reason

before my mental health got out of hand, i didn't know how my words or actions could affect other people so i can totally see how people without experience can be like that too.


but what boggles my mind is why do they feel the need to comment on every persons case or mental health as a whole whenever they can? ;s
mental health often causes people to do destructive things to themselves and others, even as far as suicide or at least thinking of it frequently. so why feel the need to degrade a person to 'stupid', 'idiotic' when there's a risk of harm for them? (speaking mostly about depression, image, food, social disorders etc here don't have experience out of this) + one reason it really bothers me that people do this is the fact they don't even realise their best friend, partner, mother, sibling etc might be suffering and the things they're saying can be very damaging to them :/


if i don't know anything about a physical disability or the history of a country or something, i won't go giving comments about it, i will leave it to people who have some sort of knowledge on it. I don't understand why people can't do the same with mental health, often enough it's people who have never experienced it themselves or watched someone close to them go through it.


i feel like it's a losing battle and society won't be accepting of it completely but if u can change at least one persons view on mental health, it's a start. it's rather that than for them to have to experience it before they can understand.

It depends on the person. My boyfriend grew up with his sister who suffered mental issues and so he understands mine. :) there's some instances where he doesn't though, and that's something I have to get over.
My father on the other hand, I haven't talked to him about it but he'd dismiss it as stupidity. He's a guy who doesn't cry or have sympathy for anyone and when I have displayed signs of stress or anxiety, he told me to stop being stupid.

There's no way someone can completely understand, we ourselves don't understand it. They just have to go with it and learn from it. :)


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